Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Qatar National Bank SAQ, which is
bidding to buy Dexia SA’s Turkish unit Denizbank AS, hired banks
to arrange meetings with investors as it seeks to tap the debt
market for the fist time in 14 months.

Barclays Capital, Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc,
Standard Chartered Plc and QNB Capital will arrange the meetings
in London from Feb. 13, the bank said in a statement to the
Qatari bourse today. A sale of a benchmark-sized dollar bond may
follow subject to market conditions, it said. A benchmark issue
usually raises at least $500 million.

Qatar National Bank, the Persian Gulf country’s biggest
lender by assets, is the last serious bidder for Denizbank after
the withdrawal of HSBC and OAO Sberbank, people familiar with
the process said last month. The bank “hopes” to complete the
purchase of Denizbank this year if “the price is right,”
Chairman Yousef Hussain Kamal said Jan. 29.

The bank, rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service, the
fourth-highest investment grade, last sold bonds in November
2010, raising $1.5 billion in five-year notes at a coupon of
3.125 percent. That offering received $6 billion in bids, it
said at the time.

The yield on Qatar National Bank’s bonds due 2015 has
dropped 26 basis points, or 0.26 percentage point, this year to
3 percent today, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg. The
average yield on bonds sold by financial services companies in
the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Qatar
and Saudi Arabia, dropped 56 basis points over the same period,
according to the HSBC/NASDAQ Dubai GCC Financial Services U.S.
Dollar Bond Index.